


Portrait

by Beleriandings



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Photography
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-14
Updated: 2015-12-14
Packaged: 2018-05-06 18:02:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5426507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beleriandings/pseuds/Beleriandings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Curufin has a new invention, and Fingon is very interested.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Portrait

**Author's Note:**

> The prompt: a fluff fic in which Curufin invents a camera and Maedhros and Fingon use it to take [this picture](http://xo00010002.tumblr.com/post/134945256864). I hope I did justice to the cuteness.

“What is it?” asked Maitimo, turning the strange device upside down dubiously to look at the underside of the box. “What does it do?”

“It captures images” explained Curufinwë, taking the box from his brother’s hands with a twist of his lip and placing it back on its stand. “See this lens here? The light enters, and falls upon the plate, and the solution coating it darkens in colour…”

“And it makes a picture?” asked Maitimo in wonder, raising a hand to the paper pictures - like paintings, he thought, but in black and white, and far more realistic than any painting he had ever seen - that lined Curufinwë’s desk. They were landscapes, and flowers, and many of the streets of Tirion… but no people, that Maitimo could see.

Curufinwë nodded. “I plan to show Father, as it may well help in his research on how to send images through a crystal, over long distances.”

Maitimo nodded approvingly. “Ingenious.”

“I plan to test it on our brothers, before that though. But to get a long enough exposure time, the subject needs to be held still for several minutes depending on the level of light - ”

Maitimo made a disbelieving sound. “Good luck in getting the twins to sit still for that long. Mind you, even the others you may have trouble with, grown adults though they may be - ”

“I’ve thought of that. If I were to encounter such problems I was considering clamping my subjects’ heads in place” said Curufinwë baldly, looking away to flip through a stack of notes as Maitimo looked alarmed. “Oh relax, it wouldn’t hurt them. It would just hold them still long enough to expose the plate, without the image becoming blurred.”

Maitimo was about to say something else, when the door burst open behind them. “Maitimo! There you are, I was looking all over the house for you. Why are you - oh hello Curufinwë! What’s that? Can I see?”

“Findekáno” said Maitimo, smiling despite himself as Curufinwë hastily pulled his invention from his brother’s hands, before it got damaged in their cousin’s effusive greeting. Maitimo extricated himself from Findekáno’s hug and turned his cousin around to face him. “How did you get into the house? Not that I’m not glad to see you but…” he tailed off, turning pink as he saw Curufinwë roll his eyes. 

“Your mother let me in” said Findekáno, ruffling up Maitimo’s hair. “Remember you promised we would go walking today, take a trip outside the city? Or we could go to the river, it’s perfect weather for swimming…” Findekáno frowned. “You do still want to go, don’t you? I’ve felt quite restless for days, pacing around the palace gardens until Grandfather’s head gardener gave me a look that near sent me to the Halls on its own, for wearing a hole in his perfect green grass verge apparently.”

“It sounds like you  _do_  need a break, cousin” said Curufinwë, wrapping his invention in a dark green velvet cloth, his motions precise and decisive. “Go on, brother. Take him walking, take him swimming, take him on his hands and knees if you - ”

“ _Curufinwë!_ ” 

Curufinwë carried straight on, talking over Findekáno’s whoop of laughter, “…just take him out of my workroom. I have things to finish, test subjects to find…”

“Test subjects?” asked Findekáno, peering at the device wrapped in the cloth in sudden interest. “What are you making? Dare I ask?”

“It’s a device for making images, using light” said Curufinwë, and Maitimo saw his brother’s annoyance dissipating a little; like their father, Curufinwë could never resist the chance to talk about his work to an interested audience. “An object is placed before it, and the plate is exposed to the light from the object…”

“And you get a little painting, without colour?” asked Findekáno in fascination, looking at the pictures that lined Curufinwë’s desk. “Curvo, that is truly wonderful! It’s like song-magic, but still, and  _lasting_ , and the likeness…”

Maitimo saw his brother blush uncharacteristically at the praise. “It is still in the early stages of development…”

“Why are there no people?” asked Findekáno. “You could just as easily make a picture of a person, could you not?”

“Maitimo and I were just having this conversation. They would need to stand completely still for several minutes…”

“Perfect! I can stand still!”

Curufinwë snorted in obvious disbelief.

“What? I can, can’t I Maitimo? If it’s several minutes, that is much shorter than a regular portrait takes to paint, and I had my portrait painted when I was a child, it’s hanging in the palace gallery…”

Curufinwë pursed his lips. “If I remember correctly - ”

“You weren’t even born then!”

“If I remember what  _my brother told me_  correctly” said Curufinwë lightly, “Maitimo and your parents had to be kept on hand at all times while that thing was being painted, to beg and cajole and bribe you into sitting still and not wandering off and out of the studio entirely.”

“Traitor” said Findekáno, elbowing Maitimo in the ribs, though not hard. “Why did you have to tell him that? Besides, I was a child at the time. I could do better now.”

“The evidence is against you.”

“Try me.”

“Cousin, brother” broke in Maitimo, pulling them both back from where they had somehow ended up leaning towards each other, hands on both their hips, glares in their eyes. “There’s no need for…”

“Actually” said Curufinwë, stepping back, a smile beginning to play about his lips, “this I am interested to see. Let’s try it, shall we?”

The day was warm and windless, and Findekáno stood with his hands on his hips looking about at the garden as Curufinwë set up his device. “Is the light right out here?” he asked, squinting through the branches of a willow tree, through which the light of Laurelin at its zenith was filtering, diffuse and dappled. 

“Perfect” said Curufinwë, straightening up. “Get into position. Something you can hold, please.”

“Right” said Findekáno. “Maitimo, what shall we do?”

“Wait” said Maitimo. “ _We?_ ”

“Yes, of course!” said Findekáno, pulling a weakly protesting Maitimo by the hand into the flat area of grass where they were to stand. “Come on, you know how I’ve always said that one day I wanted us to have our portrait painted together…”

Maitimo frowned at his brother’s sickened expression, and then half-smiled as the memory of the conversation in question returned to him. “Frankly, I’m surprised  _you_ remember that. You were drunk and you said that you wanted us painted in the pose and dress and full array of a couple in their engagement portrait, to hang it in pride of place in the palace.” he passed a hand over his face, blushing despite himself. “Mercy, but I thought you were joking.”

“Almost always a terrible assumption to make” said Findekáno, looping his arms about Maitimo’s neck. “We can’t do it with the correct robes or the jewels, and we can’t really get married, more’s the pity, but we can do that picture at least… it won’t be a painting, but it will be something…”

“It will be quicker than a painting” said Curufinwë, grinning. 

“Whose side are you on, Curvo?” protested Maitimo. 

“His. I’ve changed my mind, it’s hilarious to watch you squirm.”

“Charming.”

“Please?” implored Findekáno. 

Maitimo huffed a sigh. “Fine. But Curvo, no clamps…”

“If you can hold that pose, there won’t be a need for them.” Curufinwë smiled innocently. “Go on then. Get into position, then you can’t move until I tell you that you can.”

Maitimo sighed, but felt his desire to move from this position fading as Findekáno gleefully wrapped his arms around his neck once more. 

“Hold still, and… smile!”


End file.
